I am going to start looking today for anywhere I can reserve for launch. Some places do offer a waiting list prior to actual reservation announcements. Whatever they bring as top of the line I'm there regardless of price.

Of course it jumped. They moved to a developer friendly architecture FINALLY. The CELL caused so much trouble (at the start of the console's life) that they knew they couldn't go for such an exotic design again. They went x86 with standard PC parts and an 8gig unified memory setup.

Given the fact they learned their lesson and decided to make a console that is dev friendly is good news for investors because they know the dev teams will be jumping on board in droves this next generation.

At this point it looks as if the PS3 will certainly have a lead over the other consoles in terms of power unless the GPU in the xbox is a lot more powerful than the rumors suggest.

One other thing to keep in mind is that Sony's 8 core CPU is actually an AMD APU. Which means the CPU actually has a DX11.1 video card on the chip as well as a dedicated GPU. That is kind of a big deal in of itself. Crossfire is awesome on PCs and I can only imagine how well this will work on the PS4.

I may switch from xbox to Sony this generation. And this is coming from a guy with the exception of the Uncharted sries hasn't touched his PS3 to do anything other than play Blu-ray movies since I bought it.

The "jump" likely has nothing to do with the announcement, and more to do with natural movement in stock market.

On any given day, the stock might deviate as much as 5%. Therefore that isn't a jump! In fact, right now in pre-market the stock is down 0.5%. Is that a jump down?

I doubt any significant amount of people invest into Sony because of the Playstation. That is because the Playstation business overall makes little difference compared to the rest of the company. If the division profits (see last quarter where they only made $6 million), it contributes very little and if it loses it makes the company look far worse.

Going forward, Sony is expected to loose significant amount of money as an investment into the Playstation business.

Furthermore, very little is discussed regarding the actual business itself, like profit projection, costs, strategy and so on. "Real" investors know, it is more about the execution and facts than "claims".

If you actually look at this, this could actually be bad news for BOTH Sony and MS going with a x86 architecture. It actually shifts the cost in favor of supporting PC as before it was an additional cost to port it back to PC from console. Now it is the opposite, you target PC and port it to console.

Easier to develop for, most devs have deep knowledge of the x86 architecture already, and easier to develop multi-plat games because they all share the same basic underlying hardware.

Less R&D+more platforms=greater chance to make more money. This could be a renaissance for gaming as a whole by making the entire current market easier, cheaper, and more accessible to develop for for this first time in decades.

Anyway, you (Nukeitall) are certainly right about investors needing to know more than just promises. But the overall positive reaction from around the world regarding the press conference and the (promised) system specs certainly has to be good news for investors.

It seems to me that people and companies alike have an over-obsession with stock prices. I think it's a fundamental flaw in the structure of our economy if companies are this obsessed and reliant upon share prices--i.e., "pleasing" the shareholders. Stock value should not be the primary concern of a company--profitability and long-term stability should be. But that's just my opinion.

Facebook was on top of the world, viewed as one of the hugest homerun successes in the past decade, prior to going public. All of a sudden, when it became a publicly traded company, and the share prices were shown to be lackluster, there became this perception that Facebook was over-the-hill, or in some ways a failure. Anyone else see the failure in this logic by the financial community and general public?

"Facebook was on top of the world, viewed as one of the hugest homerun successes in the past decade, prior to going public. All of a sudden, when it became a publicly traded company, and the share prices were shown to be lackluster, there became this perception that Facebook was over-the-hill, or in some ways a failure."

It wasn't that Facebook was over the hill, it that it's financial fundamentals don't necessary measure up to it's valued stock price.

FB's growth isn't where it should be to warrant that price and hence it's taking a beating.

Basically, FB debut as a public company long after it had grown too much. FB was made public for existing stockholders to unlock their value, not because the company needed cash to grow like many other companies do which is how you usually "invest" into the company.

"Stock value should not be the primary concern of a company--profitability and long-term stability should be."

Good companies with good management do that such as Costco and McDonalds. Slow steady growth.

However, sometimes it is just market dynamics that even the company itself can't control. See Netflix.

In some ways, you're making my point. You say that Facebook's "growth" hasn't been fast enough, hence falling stock values. My argument is that it's a flawed philosophy to begin with to always be seeking the fastest possible growth to inflate stock prices in the short term. It seems to me that the success of economies or companies predicated on constant "bubbles" or spurts of greater and greater profitability--all in order to please shareholders--is a doomed endeavor. Because no company in the world will ever keep up those rates of growth. It's simply not possible. There's an upper-limit, a ceiling, to how much profit growth that each and every company is ultimately capable of. Once they hit that ceiling, the only other direction is downward. Apple, as an example, is very much on that track.

Hence, why I think more companies are, and should be, staying private.

"Good companies with good management do that such as Costco and McDonalds. Slow steady growth. [...] However, sometimes it is just market dynamics that even the company itself can't control. See Netflix"

By your statement that Netflix as a company is susceptible to market dynamics beyond their control, are you saying that the stock market is a good thing or a bad thing for them?

"My argument is that it's a flawed philosophy to begin with to always be seeking the fastest possible growth to inflate stock prices in the short term."

It is flawed, and isn't how the system is technically intended. It comes from how efficient and easy it is to trade now, that one can manipulate the system and either use unwitting investors or prey on those that like to gamble.

I'm not saying it isn't, but I'm also saying not all stocks are like that. It's just that technology companies has a history of exceedingly fast growth, and therefore there is this pre-built expectation.

You wouldn't talk about this with other industries, like auto, home builders and so on. This is a technology company phenomenon.

"It seems to me that the success of economies or companies predicated on constant "bubbles" or spurts of greater and greater profitability--all in order to please shareholders--is a doomed endeavor."

It isn't doomed, because technically there isn't really an upper limit to profits. Problem is most companies are unable to diversify themselves and be successful, but new companies are constantly testing that limit.

In addition,these bubbles is also how the system corrects itself from speculators instead of real investors.

"Hence, why I think more companies are, and should be, staying private."

The thing is, most large companies (alas FB for example) cannot unlock their value to their shareholders as a private company. Let say you are an employee with x amount of stock options, who will buy it from you?

The only way, is if you sold it on the open market or at best a profit sharing scheme, but that is rather complex and would make it extremely hard to sell your share in a company. What if you don't believe in the company anymore? How are you going to unload it?

Being private isn't the solution and the real solution is proper education of the general public about economy, business and finances. So that the public doesn't speculate.

"By your statement that Netflix as a company is susceptible to market dynamics beyond their control"

To some degree yes. Netflix just had major growth, and they are required to report that. It's the public opinion that is bidding the stock value up and it is also the public that pummels it down. Netflix can issue statements to attempt to control public opinion, but sometimes that takes a life of it's own.

Netflix the company, is still humming along regardless of what the stock market does.

", are you saying that the stock market is a good thing or a bad thing for them? ""

Well, technically it was bad for them in the sense that we have a CEO that isn't very skilled in stock investing as Netflix bought their own stock at close to top. They should have known it was overpriced, and should have bought it when it was undervalued when it dropped several months later.

I believe in general stock market is good for companies with good management. It's only bad for companies with CEO out for the fast buck and that is based on the board.

Go look at the failed articles last night. They had 2 articles claiming Sony stock dropped one by half. Gaming media is becoming a joke. Half of these sites weren't even there. They steal info from other sites.

Any true gamer will have a PS4 on release day, & only limited supply will stop the other poor gamers that miss out & have to go on the waiting list.

The machine looks tops, & Sony deserve massive success, & there temporarily lost Heavyweight console champ title that the imposters Nintendo got, in interim champ circumstances this gen. I mean, common,Wii being the no.1 selling console this gen?....wtf happened to gaming, & wtf happened to Nintendo to release such a woefully underpowered machine???? Nintendo used to be at the forefront of specs & tech, & there machines were known as the most powerful, back in the day, when true gamers respected them (8-16 bit days). Nintendo, now are known for releasing consoles that are 1 gen behind what they should be in specs, & using a gimmick, as the selling point.

I can't wait for PS4, long overdue, but I guess theres no way we would be getting those specs had PS4 launched a year or 2 ago. These games are gonna look absolutely gobsmacking IMO....& that will be just the 1st gen. Evolution are graphics powerhouse pushers (although, slightly miffed I'm not getting a new MS, thanks to gamers not supporting Pacific Rift or Apocalypse as much as they deserved). I mean, there are many negatives associated for me, due to lack of consumer support of AAA+ games, such as MS, Resistance, Starhawk, Socom, MAG, Twisted Metal, PS:AS, & many others, that now had seen some of these development teams get dropped & closed down, mixed, mashed & thrown into one big mix of developers & losing there identity, such as Cambridge, Soho, London Studios, then Zipper who developed the phenominal console online game Socom (that still remains THE BEST ONLINE console game EVER....& yes, Halo 2 included), poor old Zipper released Socom 4, which although moved away from what made the series great, was still a more than worthwhile 3rd person offline & online game, then they released Unit 13 for Vita, which is a great little portable title, & then they were made redundant to Sony....very sad considering they single handedly delivered console gamers the greatest, most tactical online romp, still to this day, & it was the game that single handedly made PS2's online community even bigger than Live on Xbox1. Well, Socom & Madden on PS2 apparently had numbers that eclipsed Xbox's service, wven with Halo 2, as well as Madden & a version of CS.

Sony how has the power that MS had with 360, & it early, fault riddled, rushed release....The difference is, that Sony can have the release jump, without the rush that MS had with a 4 or 5 year release cycle between Xbox & 360, as PS3 to PS4 is going to have been an almost 8yr cycle.

Ha!I had the same feeling durong the presentaion. Maybe they will really explore other ways to sell it. 2 year contract perhaps, where you pay initial price (let's say, 100$) and the rest is taken in a form of subscription to PS+?